Wang Min王旻

Style & Daoist names

Master Taihe (Taihe Xiansheng)

Period

Tang

Dates

? — ?

School

Shangqing (Highest Clarity) School

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)

Birthplace

Unknown (resided at Mount Qingluo, Luoyang)

Places of activity

Mount Mao (Maoshan)

Life

Wang Min, a Daoist priest of the time of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, styled "Master of Great Harmony," resided at Mount Qingluo in Luoyang. According to the Gazetteer of Mount Mao, he was summoned to the capital during the Kaiyuan era; seeing his youthful complexion and crane-white hair, Xuanzong held him in great esteem. When Xuanzong obtained the authentic Shangqing writings of Yang Xi, Xu Mi and Tao Hongjing produced at Maoshan but found thirteen leaves missing, he specially dispatched Wang Min bearing an imperial edict and gifts to Ziyang Temple on Maoshan to ask Li Hanguang to supply the missing text. He is said to have written three chapters of Miscellaneous Records of Mountain Dwelling; further accounts of his life appear in the Gazetteer of Mount Heng (Southern Peak). Historical material on Wang Min's life is fragmentary, and he appears in Daoist texts chiefly as an intermediary between the Xuanzong court and Maoshan. Judging from his title "Master of Great Harmony" and his associations, he should be counted among the Shangqing Daoists favored by the court under Xuanzong. His deeds also appear in stele material related to the biography of Li Hanguang, and can be cross-checked against the Gazetteer of Mount Mao.

Contributions & Influence

• Went to Maoshan by imperial order of Xuanzong to ask Li Hanguang to supply the missing Shangqing scriptures, participating in the Tang-dynasty compilation of the Shangqing scriptures

Works

• Miscellaneous Records of Mountain Dwelling (lost)